The increasing number of contributors require that we clearly define coding rules and guidelines. Although for historical reasons the current code of Stellarium does not always comply to these rules, they should now be respected for any addition or modification of the code.

+

Please see http://www.stellarium.org/doc/head/codingStyle.html

−

== Stylistic Conventions ==

+

[[Category:Development]]

−

+

−

*Source code should use ASCII character set. Characters such as 'é' or 'ö' are not portable when hard-coded. Gettext translated strings should be used for such characters.

+

−

*Variable names and comments should be in English.

+

−

*Class names are nouns, in mixed-case, with an initial upper-case letter and the ﬁrst letter of each subsequent word capitalized (e.g. CoreFactory).

+

−

*Method names are verbs or nouns in mixed-case, starting with a lower-case letter (e.g. update() or addElement()).

+

−

*Methods that return a value should take the form getSize().

+

−

*The names of local variables should be in mixed case, starting with a lower-case letter (e.g. packetSize). This also applies to the formal parameters of methods. Do not use names starting with underscore.

+

−

*The names of macro or static const should be all upper-case words, separated by underscore:

+

−

#define MIN_WIDTH 3

+

−

static const string VERSION = "0.8.2";

+

−

*Indentation should be done with tabs, not spaces. This allows each developers to use his favorite indent size without changing the code.

+

−

*Use the following layout for braces:

+

−

void MyClass::myMethod(int x)

+

−

{

+

−

if (x>10)

+

−

{

+

−

cout << "You won." << endl;

+

−

}

+

−

}

+

−

*Use blank lines as follows:

+

−

**1 between methods, before (block or single line) comment

+

−

**1 between logical sections of a method

+

−

**2 between sections of a source ﬁle

+

−

+

−

== File Names ==

+

−

+

−

The extensions are .hpp/.cpp for C++ headers/code, .h/.c for C headers/code.

+

−

C++ files should have the same name and case than the class they contain. For example class StelFontMgr should be declared in file StelFontMgr.hpp and implemented in StelFontMgr.cpp.

+

−

+

−

== Doxygen Comments ==

+

−

+

−

Stellarium source code should be documented with [http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/index.html Doxygen]. From Doxygen webpage:

+

−

+

−

<i>"Doxygen is a documentation system for C++, C, Java, [...] It can generate an on-line documentation browser (in HTML) and/or an off-line reference manual (in LaTeX) from a set of documented source files. [...] The documentation is extracted directly from the sources, which makes it much easier to keep the documentation consistent with the source code. [...] You can also visualize the relations between the various elements by means of include dependency graphs, inheritance diagrams, and collaboration diagrams, which are all generated automatically.</i>

+

−

+

−

All public and protected classes and methods from Stellarium should be fully documented in the headers (.hpp).

+

−

+

−

There are different ways to comment C++ code with Doxygen, in Stellarium use the following for headers files:

+

−

+

−

//! Find and return the list of at most maxNbItem objects auto-completing the passed object I18n name.

+

−

//! @param objPrefix the case insensitive first letters of the searched object.

+

−

//! @param maxNbItem the maximum number of returned object names.

+

−

//! @return a vector of matching object name by order of relevance, or an empty vector if nothing match.

Brief descriptions are single line only, and stop at the first full stop (period). Any subsequent sentences which occur before @param or a similar tag are considered to be part of a detailed description.

+

−

+

−

For methods definitions in .cpp files, a simpler comment for each method is sufficient:

*Use STL containers such as std::vector or std::map, they are extremely efficient. Documentation is [http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/ here].

+

−

*Avoid using global function and variable. Encapsulate them in classes or namespaces as static members/variable.

+

−

*Avoid using C macro, use static const variables instead. It is safer because it is type safe.

+

−

#define RADIUS 12 // Bad

+

−

static const int RADIUS = 12;

+

−

+

−

*Use stdc++ math functions instead of C ones. There are more protable and are also overrided for float, thus may be faster.

+

−

double cosLat = cos(lat); // Bad

+

−

double cosLat = std::cos(lat); // Good

+

−

+

−

== Translatable strings and text console output ==

+

−

+

−

In Stellarium, translatable text is translated using the Translator class, which is a C++ wrapper to gettext. The translation process is done using the _() macro which takes in input a std::string in english and return in output a std::wstring (a string of wide characters) translated in another language using the current global language.

+

−

*Translatable text in sources or in data files should be written in English, encoded in ASCII or UTF-8 if needed.

+

−

*Translatable text should obey English typo conventions, for example there should be no space before ':'

+

−

wstring myTranslatedText = _("Distance of the planet ''':'''") // Bad

+

−

wstring myTranslatedText = _("Distance of the planet''':'''") // Good

+

−

+

−

*When modifying the code, avoid to modify translatable string unless really needed. Any modification on one of them means that all the translators for all the langages will have to re-translate the new string.

+

−

*In general no translated text (i.e. no wstring) should be output on the console because there are problems when string and wstring are output on the same console. This means that you should never use wcout, wcerr or wprintf(). Console output should be used for informations, errors and warnings which are not required by the user in nominal use.

You can use the [http://astyle.sourceforge.net/ astyle] program to format your code according to these conventions. Use the following options:

+

−

astyle --style=ansi -tU source.cpp

+

−

+

−

Note that this command will replace the file '''source.cpp''' with the re-formatted one, and create a backup of the original with the .orig suffix. Also note that the -U option (used to un-pad parenthesis) is only available recent version of astyle.